Esports as a business

If one wanted to learn as much as possible about eSports as a business; where would one find the most resources available? I've gathered some interviews with Sundance, Riot employee's and the executives show when it was still running but I'd like to know more (even older stuff like WCG and the world series of video games.)

Would it be beneficial to look at books on sports marketing or are there better resources available? I've done a few Google searches but I feel like I've exhausted most of the relevant information already as most of the sources I've found are older articles that don't have too much "meat on the bones" so to speak.

I understand getting verifiable data as far as viewership and ROI is difficult if not impossible, but I'm hoping someone knows where to look.

there aren't any rules to running an esports enterprise. everyone is basically doing their own thing and most of them have been crippled by WCS. i would read up on the blizzard vs kespa fiasco and how WCS impacted the independent organizers.

Here is a link to one of Day[9]'s blogs. He is a very well known caster and has a online show about Starcraft. The link is to his blog about getting a job in eSports, so it may be a good starting point.

The industry is still very young so your best bet in finding out more is through directly talking to those actively (and previously) involved. This would include stuff like finding out about forums (and posts/threads) that people have done in their own time to chronicle eSports history and other things similar to "oral passed down traditions" per se.

TLDR; Like some have already mentioned, you need to go directly to the people involved. There really aren't any books to read or chain of commands to go through to get what you need because it's [still] being figured out.

Thanks for the swift replies. I'm actually not looking to start anything yet but more educate myself on how the market operates from the inside. What I'm looking for is a combination of things (Not even sure if this is possible, so bear with me) A history of esports from a business preservative, why it "failed" in the west pre LoL and SC2 as well as theory and analysis of how it operates today as a market.

For example, most people can tell you the revenue for esports right now comes from selling ad space and sponsorships. Why is this? It seems like a very basic answer but I'm not looking for people's opinions but rather facts if that makes sense. Things like, why does f2p work better than subscriptions of b2p. Again, this seems rather obvious but I'm interested in facts and not connecter and opinions. While I'm sure people have very reasonable and persuasive arguments for why things operate the way they do, I'm looking for comments (not necessary in this thread, but other places as well) by people in the industry who do this on a day to day basis. Perhaps what I'm looking for doesn't exist because the industry is so new (relative) that no one wants to divulge their "secrets" but perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. The reason I'm interested in sports marketing as a parallel to esports is because I believe there is an overlap in how sports make money and how esports does ( or should?)

I'd love to reach out to streamers and people active in the community but since my questions are so general and convoluted I'd rather not waste their time until I have concrete and specific things to ask.

Thanks again. I'm thinking this might be more appropriate as a blog since it's not really about SC2 exclusively. If mods agree please feel free to move it to an more appropriate forum.

Interviews with James "2GD" Harding are also pretty good sources of information on the business side of competitive gaming (unless conducted by HotBid). 2GD is very well connected and seems to be very knowledgable on all facets of this business.JP also did a "Real Talk" with 2GD

Actually, come to think of it, Patrick (Chobopeon) O`Neill, Jason Lake of Complexity and Michael (Odee) O'Dell of Dignitas put on a show called "The Executives" which was focused on the business-side of eSports. It is probably a great place to start, which can direct you to other sources. (The show seems to be on hiatus, but the information is still relevant)

Live on Three is a weekly general eSports show by DjWHEAT, Slasher and (formerly) SirScoots. Though a lot of the show is overall eSports news, there is a lot of business-related stuff that comes up. (There are 160+ (2hr) shows...might be daunting to go through)

ROI models are hidden away (and very hard to evaluate), but Twitch/MLG/Dreamhack/Etc. usually publish certain metrics after their events (i.e. viewer hours, peak concurrents, average # of viewers, total views, etc.) which are all taken into consideration when their reach is being evaluated.

don't think there has been a new episode in several months, but I remember listening to some of the episodes last year and it was all top-notch esport business discussion. It probably helps if you've studied some basic management/marketing/business administration as well since there were some in-depth interviews with people from throughout the industry.

On July 13 2013 05:55 Sawofhackness wrote:It's only profitable for those at the very top

For everyone else it's a very expensive passion

I can't count the number of business and ventures that went broke in the early days of Esports (back in late 90's, early 2000's)

I would love to get access to their financial records (if there are any) and do the due diligence. Was it a poor allocation of funds? Managerial oversights? Lack of interest? It's easy to say "this business failed" but it's much more interesting to me why they failed. I'm very aware about the lack of money and opportunities for profit as of right now. If you look at the history of professional sports as a whole it took decades to get where they are today (and in the case of baseball over a century) I'm getting my MBA and I'd like to make esports my career at some point, so I want to "absorb" as much of the industry as I can.

Best to just go along to an event like a tourney or a LAN and see how its run, talk to some people as to why they came along and ask some of the employees how they got a job there, how often they've worked there and stuff like that. Its going to far better to get a ground up sense than a 'polite carefully worded media presentation'

In a nutshell, eSports is a broadcast entertainment business and relies on advertising/sponsorships for most of its revenue.

Industry Challenges

- It is primarily broadcast over the internet, which is harder to monetize than traditional network or cable. (Korea being the exception)- The industry is fragmented from business, geographic, game to game, players & teams, and intellectual property standpoints- Historically, there has been high "game volatility" which hurts growth- Some of the industry is not sustainable - heavy reliance on developer/publisher marketing dollars- Professional gaming still carries a certain stigma, especially in North America, but also globally (Korea does best here with highest acceptance)

Industry Opportunities

- New technology is playing a key role in growth and is helping to solve many problems including scalability and advertising inventory (thanks Twitch)- eSports is growing, more and more people are watching - there's big potential with eSports when you consider the larger broadcast market

I'd do projections and recommendations, but I'm tired

EDIT: If you really want a career in this, you should focus on getting experience in the broadcasting and/or entertainment industries.

One way many consulting organizations obtain this sort of information about an industry is to perform a study and exchange a portion or all of the results and analysis for participation. For example, survey respondents would get a copy of specified pieces of aggregated statistics or something like that.

You would have to establish your capabilities and trustworthiness, perform a bunch of analysis, and sell the deal participants. It's no simple thing to do, but it can get you high quality exclusive information, which tends to be very valuable.

There're a lot of points to talk about, so unless you have specific questions, it's very hard to talk about all things.

In a nutshell, there're couple ways esports business is being run right now. Some people run it as an entertainment business, some people run it as a sports business, some run it as a promotion/marketing business. Each business got pros and cons.